Games utilizing playing cards are popular throughout the world. Many people can get hours of enjoyment and relaxation from a single deck of playing cards. In certain parts of the world, wagering adds a new dimension of excitement to the game. Whether in "card room" games where one of the players who is not associated with the owner of the establishment acts as a banker or in a traditional "casino" game environment where an employee of the house acts as a banker, wagering adds excitement to many forms of card games.
Players involved in card games with wagering often enjoy new games with relatively simple rules that can readily be learned by a beginner or casual player. Players and casinos also enjoy games that can be played quickly.
Typical card games involve a dealer providing a plurality of cards to each player. Each player then gathers the cards and tries to form the best possible hand according to some predetermined hierarchy of hand values. For example, a standard poker hierarchy is, in descending order, Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, and High Card. In some games, players are permitted to discard certain cards and receive new cards in an effort to form a better hand.
From a casino's perspective, games are preferably played very quickly since the total amount earned by the house is a small percentage of the total amount of money wagered. One significant disadvantage of known games that permit a player to play more than one hand at a time from the perspective of the casino is that there are many instances when the player and the dealer split hands, i.e. with the player winning a hand and the dealer winning a hand, consequently there are many hands with no winners. From the player's perspective, some such games have the disadvantage of not allowing a player to improve his hands after the initial seven cards are dealt and also the fact that he must pay a five percent commission on winning hands.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a card game readily adaptable to wagering which is relatively simple to learn for a new player and which can be played quickly.
It would also be desirable to provide a game which provides a player with opportunities to increase his wager, and ultimately his winning payout.